The Things Between
by EnchanteRhea
Summary: Set friendship on fire and it will erupt, pull its victims into a whirlwind of change. Seducing Tatsumi is easier now that most of his inhibitions are gone. But change is a longterm process: they both change, in time, and comfort replaces insecurity.TxW


Last one of those I wrote was in January 2006. I haven't quite realized it's been so long. Not much has changed in that Yami is still definitely not mine. Written for Amanda, and for JTriskell, a wonderful fellow author and friend. 3 Please enjoy. Reviews are love. Originally posted at enchanter at livejournal, and omoikiri at livejournal (my Yami fic archive).

**- **

**The Things Between**  
by Rhea Logan

-

The bell tolls eleven times, somewhere in the JuuOhCho complex, when Watari's hand lands, soundless, on the latch of his lab door. It feels heavier, stickier than it usually does. Somewhat fatigued, unlike his mind - that one is awake and alert, even though his eyes insist on staying shut a milisecond too long every time he blinks.

Tatsumi is close enough behind him to let Watari feel - or imagine he feels - a slight bit of warmth emanating from beneath his suit, pristine and surprisingly neat regardless of the late hour. If he didn't know better, he'd risk a guess that Tatsumi forfeited his need of sleep along with his life decades back.

Tatsumi clears his throat. Oh, surely not. Watari smiles to the utter certainty that it is not the case.

Knowing him is enough; Watari's mind's eye sports a mental image of a slender hand reaching to adjust the tie that doesn't need adjusting, to remove specks of dust that aren't there. Tatsumi's footfalls behind him go silent, approximately two steps away from where he's standing. One pause for a breath. One to turn around.

Watari grins. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Tatsumi's glasses sliding half an inch down his nose. There, it begins now. Tatsumi will meet his gaze for a splinter of a second, thinking he's hiding that behind his hand as he makes a move to nudge them back in place. In that moment, breathless, Watari will giggle inwardly with unrestrained glee, knowing he will indulge himself far more tonight than Tatsumi thinks he's going to allow.

Oh, yes. Definitely more than that.

The door clicks shut behind them. Tatsumi cringes at Watari's suggestion that he make their tea. Obviously, he'd rather not take the blame for any resulting explosions. Tatsumi doesn't know, and Watari is far too amused to tell him, that the sets of identical, nondescript containers in the kitchenette adjacent to the main lab do not, in fact, contain anything volatile. Horror stories are too good to deny them, and Watari can't deny himself the fun of daring Tatsumi to _do it_, to _act like a man_. A cheap trick, that. It works, and Watari is satisfied.

Besides, he doesn't mean anything by that. Tatsumi should know it by now. After all, if he fulfilled each of his threats to cut Watari's pay, Watari would have to cough up cash-multiplying potion, or a spell, on very short notice, and pray for a miracle.

Sprawled on the couch, he lets his eyes lazily follow Tatsumi's cat-like movements around his den. You're not walking on eggshells, he thinks, amusement drawing the corners of his lips upward just so. Much less on landmines, although Tatsumi's expression argues otherwise.

Years later, the shadows that follow their master still smuggle in enough of his fears to saturate the atmosphere.

Tatsumi isn't going to deduct anything from his own pay check, after all, should any of the horror tales come true and an innocent-looking cup of amber liquid blow up in his hands. But he goes and reaches up to one of the shelves, fingertips brushing a few boxes on their way before they find the one Tatsumi thinks contains tea. He really doesn't realize how much he gambles, for all his signature caution and care. Against restraint, all but visible in his too-straight back, he turns and tips his head to the side. A half-question, and something like a search for reassurance Watari isn't going to give.

The simplest things unearth Tatsumi's insecurities. They take the form of shadow-wisps; they swarm the floor beneath his feet, odds and ends of Tatsumi's past that still sometimes catch up with him.

Watari shrugs his shoulders even as he grins, and Tatsumi sighs. Steam rises from the kettle. Porcelain cups clink in his grasp as Tatsumi sets them on the messy counter. Uncertainty, Watari thinks, is Tatsumi's middle name, and that is okay. Tatsumi without his quirks wouldn't be the same - not quite as frustrating, not nearly as annoying, and definitely not as fascinating as he is.

Watari's coat whispers against the floor as he frees himself from it. He knows Tatsumi is watching him, with that pretended disinterest that is neither convincing, nor is it particularly meant to be. Tatsumi will not join him until he deems their drinks prepared; Watari sets himself to the task of stretching tired muscles, half-closed eyes tracing the edges of his partner's suit. Soon, it will come off.

Not nearly soon enough.

He stifles a yawn. Past experience has blessed him with the knowledge that his needs aside, Tatsumi is all too quick to suggest sleep instead of whatever wicked scheme Watari has had in his mind since lunch break at least. There is comfort in knowing him so well. Tatsumi might be more predictable than most. Far from boring, though. Sometimes Watari wonders what will happen the day that changes. Someday, he knows, they will face that possibility, and they will deal with it.

But not yet. Not for years to come, he hopes; at least not as far as he is concerned. Tatsumi is not one to grow tired with someone, but he's not that unlikely to withdraw for reasons Watari finds odd. But he reminds himself to be careful; Tatsumi is _his_, a truth he will hold on to for the sake of his sanity.

Steam swirls above twin cups. The scent of freshly brewed tea tickles Watari's senses. Warmth that isn't just boiled liquid draws him; the couch dips just so as Tatsumi sits down beside him, removing his suit jacket and hanging it neatly across the chair to his left.

"That went well," Tatsumi says at last, the first words a welcome disturbance of thickening air.

Watari bites his tongue a breath away from asking if he meant the making of their tea, or the case from which they have just returned. He smiles instead, and tugs at his ribbon until it gives and lets him shake his hair loose from the braid.

"Quite well," he says. He can't quite keep amusement away from his tone. "No explosions, the body count as predicted. Quick, nice and clean."

Tatsumi gives him _the look_, about to point out something obvious, as he's wont to do. "Watari-san—"

"We dropped the honorifics at that doorstep, Tatsumi," Watari says, jabbing his thumb into now-lighter air behind him. All right, so stating the obvious does come in handy every once in a while. And nobody said that Tatsumi holds exclusive rights to do that. "Three years ago, in fact."

Set friendship on fire and it will erupt, pull its victims into a whirlwind of change. With others, those Watari still cares to recall sometimes, it was passion that signified the start of "something more". Problems came later; reality didn't seem too pleased with waiting too long to catch up with the heart, and it cooled more quickly than he liked to admit, to himself or otherwise.

Watari reaches for his cup and takes a sip. Hot tea burns his tongue. No, he still doesn't mind distractions like this. He smiles to his thoughts; they come and go, tiny bits of sparkling glass in his memory like in a kaleidoscope. Tatsumi has changed a lot, and so has he, but some things persist against all odds.

Tatsumi defies the very stereotypes everyone associates with him. This is it. Watari almost jumps out of his seat when the realization settles in with the subtlety of a brick smashing square into a glass pane.

This man is like a double-edged sword without a user manual; surface simplicity falls apart, revealing a web of intricacies to figure out. And really, when you're Watari, you just can't walk away from a challenge like that.

With Tatsumi, everything is the other way around. Tatsumi came to him wrapped tightly in fears that all but strangled him when stirred. Draped in insecurities, he clung to them for decades, a darkness that lived and breathed for him. A darkness that knew not to let light reach within and vanquish it.

Watari undid him, one bit at a time, and tried not to remember how many times he cut himself on the sharpest edges of Tatsumi's shell. A grand experiment into which he put, as one of the main components, his own heart.

There will come a day when it feels right to say that out loud. This thought flickers across Watari's mind as his tongue laps at his dry lips, as he shifts cat-like onto his knees and straddles Tatsumi's hips.

Tatsumi has long since stopped greeting this with an exasperated sigh. One fear down; one wall torn to the ground. Watari crawls past the mental debris and hums, satisfied, when Tatsumi sweeps his glasses with his right hand, Watari's with his left – both at once.

It is a dance at the edge of a curious kind of a precipice – slippery and dark and warm and knowing, and perhaps even... loving? Although Tatsumi's acceptance of the things between them is not yet that advanced. Watari isn't entirely sure he, himself, is that far, but it matters so little now.

Victory comes the day Tatsumi forgets himself and sheds the last of his restraints. Maybe – just maybe – it will be the day Watari admits that he, too, has come into this with a set of his own fears.

It matters even less when Tatsumi's hands tug at his clothes, never harsh or impatient, yet trembling as though they wanted to be.

Lips pressed against lips and his voice not quite his, Tatsumi asks, "Have you locked the door?" 

Watari's hands pause halfway across Tatsumi's back, underneath his shirt.

"No."

A flash of fear – shadows stir – blue eyes darken and Tatsumi makes a move that suggests he wants to free himself and leave. Watari is prepared for that – he grabs Tatsumi's wrists and shakes his head a bit. Golden locks tumble across his shoulder.

"What if—"

"Someone comes in?" Watari flashes a grin. "You'll never live this down, and you'll have to admit you're in love with me."

"I'm—" Tatsumi breaks off. "I beg your pardon?"

His heart should not be pounding like this. His hands should not start sweating the instant Watari's mind replays his own words to him. But they do, and he breaks into laughter – Tatsumi's face is pink and sports the look of someone who has just been caught in a far naughtier act.

"Well, aren't you?" Go with the flow, Watari tells himself, trying to pretend his own face isn't burning, too. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. "Tatsumi, you can start to breathe now. You're dead, but this conversation really doesn't merit a casualty."

"Preposterous." Tatsumi looks away, brow creasing just so. He wears his thoughts on his sleeve now, more obvious to Watari than they have ever been.

"If you say so," Watari nods and grins, counting seconds until Tatsumi looks at him – two, three – finally, blue eyes meet his. "And what are you going to do about this?"

The answer has been 'get up and leave' more times than Watari cares to remember, but he keeps trying. After all, a researcher who gives up after a misfortune or two does not deserve the name. It is his turn to hold his breath – not long enough to let the lack of oxygen set his lungs on fire, just long enough to trigger the tiniest bit of uncertainty.

Watari squashes it just as Tatsumi's mouth all but crushes his. Wet tongue darts between his lips, the heat of breath – Tatsumi's, or his own – melts him from within. Watari's eyes slide shut and he groans, straddling Tatsumi's hips tighter lest he flee. Not that he would. Not now. But Watari can never be too sure, and it does not hurt to take care of every possibility.

This isn't happening - Tatsumi isn't taking lead, is he?

He feels damp palms search the expanse of bared skin, touching him – I am real, Watari thinks – he guides Tatsumi's hands to sink into his hair, breathes in the scent of need as he bites Tatsumi's ear.

"How about this," he whispers, one hand sneaking towards Tatsumi's belt, beneath his now-open shirt. "You'll trust me everyone's got better things to do than spying on us in the middle of the night, and I'll show you what you need."

Tatsumi tenses a bit. "You haven't _arranged_ this, have you?"

Watari schools his face to the most innocent look he's capable of, and fails quite miserably. Tatsumi has long learned to see through these.

"Nah," he chuckles, batting his lashes twice. It will make Tatsumi roll his eyes; a funny sight, enough to make him laugh. "You're always suspecting me of the worst things."

"I have a good reason to—"

Watari swallows needless conversation with a kiss. Later, there might be time for this, when they will lie in the darkness that lets Tatsumi maintain a feeble illusion of dignity, after his breath has calmed and his heart has slowed down.

In the end, Watari muses, diving in to please Tatsumi in ways that make both of them glad the lab walls are more soundproof than others in Shokan-ka, he has come... quite far. Few things make Watari happier than the times he gets results surpassing expectations _this_ far.

It's the fourth consecutive time Tatsumi forgot his tea, and tonight, he moans a little louder than usual.

July 11-12th, 2007. 


End file.
